1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a file sharing system, a file sharing method, and a file sharing program for realizing telephone service that enables a plurality of speakers to share a file during a telephone conversation.
2. Description of Related Art
A telephone is communication means that has been used conventionally, and is still used at present time widely irrespective of age or sex. On the other hand, recently, as a result of the spread of a personal computer (PC), the Internet, a digital camera, and the like, it is possible to take a picture and immediately show it to a person at a distance owing to the development of a data communication network such as the Internet. Under such circumstances, for example, there is an increasing demand for taking a picture, showing it to a party on the other end, and sharing it with the party on the other end, thereby talking about the picture, during a telephone conversation. There has been also a demand for having a conversation while watching the same document and material as those of a party on the other end in business as well as the above-mentioned personal use.
Conventionally, such a demand has been satisfied using, for example, a softphone that realizes a telephone function with software on a PC. More specifically, files and uniform resource locators (URLs) can be transferred to a party on the other end one by one, using a file transfer function or a file sharing function of the softphone.
Furthermore, a communication terminal realizing the above-mentioned demand is disclosed by, for example, JP 2004-266325 A. This document proposes a communication terminal in which a function for sharing a file on the Web is added to an internet protocol (IP) telephone terminal. In this communication terminal, a URL showing the location of a file on the Web is transmitted to a communication terminal of a party on the other end using an electronic mail protocol to share the file on the Web with the communication terminal of the party on the other end.
Furthermore, as disclosed by, for example, JP 2004-297250 A, a portable terminal having a function of transmitting information for identifying shared data to a terminal of a partner on the other end is also proposed.